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Bad news Betamax lovers. The 40-year-old video cassette tapes are about to die. Sony broke the news on its website Tuesday, saying it would stop making the tapes as of March 2016. The cassette tapes went along with the Beta VCR, the first model which was released back in 1975. The system allowed viewers to record their favourite TV programs onto Betamax tapes. Sony discontinued the players back in 2002, but its cassette tapes lived on.

THOSE WHO IGNORE HISTORY are doomed to repeat it. One of life's more satisfying ironies, however, is that the same fate often befalls those who fixate on history. Consider the coming train wreck of Sony's PlayStation 3.At this year's annual Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles, Sony announced that its next-generation video-game console will begin retailing in November for $599 (or $499 for a stripped-down version). The news rippled through the gaming industry, the consensus being that Sony had doomed its new system with such a high price tag. Traditionally, home video-game consoles have sold for $199 to $299.This news...

A flood of legislation released by the passage of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act threatens to drown whole classes of consumer electronics In 1998, U.S. entertainment companies persuaded Congress to make dramatic changes in its copyright code by passing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The DMCA gave copyright holders new rights to control the way people use copyrighted material and new protection for technologies designed to restrict access or copying. The movie and record companies argued they needed these new restrictions to fight increased piracy threats in the digital era. In the eight years since the DMCA's passage, however, piracy...

Maxell reportedly pledged to bring out a 300GB optical holographic disk system late next year. Will this finally be the affordable high capacity backup system we have been waiting for? Apparently the drive will transfer at up to 20MB/sec - this means that 300GB data could be written in as little as 4 hours and ten minutes - however due to lead-in and other delays 5 hours is a more reasonable guess as to how long it will take to back up 300GB.

Betamax finally laid to rest Fans said Betamax had better quality pictures Betamax video recorders are finally being phased out almost 20 years after losing the battle for dominance of the home video market to VHS. Betamax's manufacturer, Sony, has announced that it will make only 2,000 more machines for the Japanese market. They have not been on sale in the rest of the world since 1998. VHS became the dominant format by the mid-1980s Betamax was launched in 1975, and won many fans who said it was better quality than its VHS rival. Some 2.3 million Betamax machines were...